


hourglass turn

by skadren



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Tragedy, Hallucinations, M/M, Partial Mind Control, Puppet Cloud Strife, Suicide, Time Loop, Violence, although do they really count if it's a, multiple character deaths, schrodinger's character death i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skadren/pseuds/skadren
Summary: written for sefikura week 2021Sephiroth straightens, eyes burning with bright fire. His voice is hard and cold and resonates with a heavy power as he commands, “Wake up.”Blue eyes snap open.
Relationships: Sephiroth/Cloud Strife
Comments: 29
Kudos: 132





	hourglass turn

**Author's Note:**

> if you would prefer to read this separated into each prompt as originally published on tumblr, you can find day 1 [here](https://skadren.tumblr.com/post/641321605756256256/sefikura-week-day-1).

_1\. meeting in another world_

Cloud finds him sprawled in what is left of Midgar's slums, passed out cold with blood oozing from the back of his skull and staining his close-shaven scalp a deep crimson. Chunks of cement still clatter against the ground as they rain from the crumbling plate above their heads; he must have fallen not too long ago.

It's a surprise, finding someone all the way out here in the ruins. Most people avoid them like the plague, whispering about bad omens and collapsing buildings and dangerous mako leaks, and judging by whatever happened to this poor soul, they're probably right. But Cloud has long stopped needing to worry about things like that, and the warnings simply serve to help him. After all, he'd come here to avoid chancing across anyone. Perhaps, he thinks, this stranger is a kindred soul of a sort, someone who has also left civilization behind for his own reasons.

While Cloud does what he can with the materia he has on hand, head injuries are fickle things. He can only stabilize the stranger enough to not bleed out—not enough for him to regain consciousness, and definitely not enough for him to be able to defend himself against the hungry, mako-crazed monsters that roam throughout the shattered former city.

No matter his reasons for coming here, Cloud can't just leave a stranger out to die, either, so he carefully hoists him up onto his back in a fireman's carry with a grunt. Even taking his large frame and long legs into account, the stranger is much heavier than Cloud expected, and it takes a while for them to reach the literal hole in the wall Cloud has claimed as his sleeping space, the relatively-intact remnants of some poor soul’s former living room with the collapsed roof propped up by splintered beams he assumes used to be the rafters. He's rather relieved when he finally gets to lay the stranger onto the blankets he'd been using as a makeshift mattress.

He can't do much other than clean and dress his wounds, but to his relief, the deep gash in his head has stopped bleeding by the time Cloud wipes all the blood away with a damp, clean rag. He bandages it anyways, just to be safe, then settles back to wait for his impromptu patient to wake up.

Now that Cloud isn't focused on treating the man's wounds, he has the time to examine his appearance. Something about the elegant shape of his eyes, the sharp cut of his jaw, reminds him of—

Cloud shakes his head firmly. _Tifa was right,_ he scolds himself. _You've got to stop living in the past._

After all, that's why he'd come here, isn't it? To spend some time away to clear his head and fix it back on straight. To forget about the phantom that haunts his nightmares and his waking dreams. Then he can go back to Seventh Heaven, go back to the mundane, normal, peaceful life he'd held, and live it without having to look at his friends' eyes and see their disappointed concern every time he slips back into old habits, every time he says something he should have left buried, every time he looks at something innocuous and sees the past instead. They hadn't brought it up for the longest time, too kind to pressure Cloud into moving on at the pace he should be, but each time it'd happened the tension would build a little higher and higher until it'd boiled over, and Tifa had—Tifa had said—

Well, he can't blame her for thinking he doesn't try, Cloud thinks ruefully. Self-deprecatingly. Because he tries, but he always fails, so does it even matter?

Deep down, he knows it's because there's a part of him that doesn't _want_ to move on, doesn't want to forget. Pale imitation he may be, Cloud is still the closest thing to the last of his kind. If he forgets, then who is left to remember the pain and despair of being a SOLDIER? Zack's selfless sacrifice for the sake of freedom? The beautiful, solemn, lonely man Sephiroth had once been? Cloud doesn't want to forget. Cloud _refuses_ to forget. And therein lies the problem.

A low groan as the stranger finally stirs breaks Cloud from his thoughts, and he jolts back to alertness, sitting up straight.

"How do you feel?" he asks quietly, slowly, trying not to overwhelm the other man as he wakes. "Can you open your eyes?"

The stranger's brow wrinkles, eyelids fluttering, as if struggling to comply with Cloud's request. Slowly, finally, his eyes blink open, and it takes an extra second for them to focus on Cloud's face hovering above, and their eyes lock, blue on green.

Although—on second thought, to call them _green_ would be an overstatement, Cloud decides. They’re more a dull olive color, threaded through with a brighter green and edged with a soft dove-gray, pupils round and dark.

It's that last detail that has his nerves easing into something more settled, more relaxed, and dismissing his earlier thoughts as the paranoia they are. This is a stranger with dull, unremarkable eyes, his hair shorn so close to his scalp it looks dark and gray. Nothing more, nothing less.

And when the stranger looks up at him and smiles, slow and wide and sleek, uncaring of the way his dry lips split, Cloud tells himself it isn't familiar.

-

_2\. new beginnings_

It takes a few days before the stranger is well enough to speak.

They spend the entire time in silence, Cloud being not exactly one for conversation either. The stranger's eyes simply track him as he makes his rounds around the room, cleaning his wound, changing his bandages, drawing fresh water. Cooking bland meals that are easy to chew and digest, pulling his blankets back up to his chin when they fall down, sponging him clean when the sweat grows too tacky against his skin—not a single word is exchanged.

So it's almost a surprise when the stranger finally says one day, voice deep and raspy, "Are you not going to ask who I am?"

Cloud pauses in his motions of rebandaging the man's half-healed wound, thinking. He hadn't pushed earlier because the stranger wouldn’t have been able to answer, anyways, but now…

He shakes his head. "You don't owe me anything just because I helped you."

A raised brow, accompanied by a flash of startled intrigue. Yet his voice sounds dry and almost bored as he asks, "You do not wish to know the identity of the stranger you have let into your home? What if I had dangerous intentions?"

Cloud shrugs. He hasn't worried about his own wellbeing in a long time, and it's not because he's overconfident; he simply just can't bring himself to care anymore. As for the man's identity— "Sometimes," Cloud says slowly, "some things are better off left unknown."

"Is that so?" the stranger replies. "How naive of you. Many would say that knowledge is power."

He shrugs again. "I came out here to forget—to learn to lay the past to rest. I'd be a hypocrite to expect anything different from you."

The stranger watches Cloud for a long while, sharp and hawklike, an unreadable emotion tugging at the lines of his mouth and eyes. Finally, he says, “Call me what you please. As you said, my past is of no consequence.” There's a bitter cast to the hard line of his mouth.

"I see,” Cloud says softly, tugging the ends of the linen bandage into one last knot. He can empathize with the desire for the past to have no hold on who you are anymore. “Give me some time to think of something, then."

"It need not be anything elaborate. Something simple will do."

"Well… it's not every day you get to start out with a blank slate. I just want to pick something that fits well."

He examines Cloud in that same long, careful way again, then nods, just once. "Take all the time you need."

Cloud nods back. Then, with the exchange over and the bandage changed, he rises to his feet. “Porridge for lunch?” he asks casually, as if he hasn’t been spoon-feeding the poor man the same soggy, tasteless sludge every meal of every day.

“Please,” comes the dry answer. “I don’t believe I’ll ever tire of your porridge. It’s truly a rare delicacy.”

Cloud blinks down at him, once, twice. The expression on the stranger’s face is unimpressed, the flat line of his mouth so clearly sarcastic that a quiet, startled laugh that falls from Cloud’s own mouth, and—when was the last time he’d genuinely laughed—?

“Just for that, you’re getting extra. You’re still recovering, so you need the energy.” He activates his makeshift stove-slash-fire-materia with a crackle, heating up the pot of leftovers from earlier. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he tests, “Ásta.”

Even though Cloud had requested more time to think about it, the name pops spontaneously into his mind—a soft, beautiful name taken from the language of the mountains, probably a tad more effeminate than the stranger might like. But that's only if he ever gets the chance to even know any better.

“ … Ásta,” the stranger echoes, another unknown emotion twisting at his mouth. It sounds more like a statement than a question when he says, “That’s to be my new name, I suppose.”

Cloud nods, but he adds, "If you don't like it—"

"It is—acceptable." His voice falters oddly over the word, but he continues smoothly, "May I ask if it has any significance? A meaning, perhaps?"

Cloud tinges pink, turning his face away to stare down at the bubbling porridge as he stirs. "It's… short for Ástríðr.” A girl’s name, in Nibelheim, but—it comes from a word expressing divinity, and another meaning beautiful, beloved, and for some reason, Cloud can’t help but feel it fits. “Maybe I’ll tell you when you earn it.”

“It was given to me, and yet I still have to earn it?” Ásta huffs lightly. But he adds, low and quiet, “Perhaps one day I will finally know what it means.”

“Maybe one day,” Cloud says noncommittally, spooning their meal into two bowls, making sure to give the other man a hefty portion. But he has no intention of sharing, and the only other person who might know is Tifa, who hadn’t grown up with the Nibel language the way Cloud had, so—his secret is safe. To distract from the topic, he plunks their bowls down on the bedside table with an exaggerated flourish and says a bit sadistically, “Enjoy.”

Ásta groans with a matching overdrawn drama; Cloud laughs.

-

_3\. puppet_

With a second pair of hands around to help, the days seem to pass much more easily. The long, empty silences where Cloud is alone with nothing but his swirling thoughts are gone, replaced with easy banter and comfortable companionship. And after Ásta mentions the condition of the crumbling room they live in, sounding almost disapproving of Cloud's disregard for his own safety, Cloud starts coming home after cleaning up the monster population each day to find a new part fixed: the leaks in the roof patched over, the splintering wooden beams smoothed over and lashed to steel support, a door installed over the crumbling hole they'd been using to enter before.

It's a day when Ásta is out scavenging for wood to fashion a better bed that Vincent appears. He says nothing, just hovers politely outside the new doorway instead of sneaking in as is his norm, and Cloud leans against the doorframe with his arms crossed warily. “You here to ask me to go back?”

Vincent shakes his head, just once. "I came to see how you were doing."

"Why? It's not unusual for me and Tifa to argue over these kinds of things," Cloud points out. "Even less for me to leave to get my head back on straight."

"I am aware. However, while she did not intend or even understand the impact of her words, they were far too harsh on you this time."

Vincent's eyes gleam ruby-red as he watches Cloud, much too understanding. But really, the one person Cloud would expect to understand how much the accusation of not trying had hurt would be Vincent, and he finally sighs and relents, backing away from the doorway and gesturing with an arm. "Come in. I think I might have tea somewhere."

Cloud puts on the kettle, tapping his fingers against his leg as he waits, and it's only after it begins whistling and he shuts the fire off that Vincent speaks.

"You are living with someone else." His eyes sweep over the extra pair of shoes by the doorway for a set of feet much larger than Cloud's, then the extra dishes drying on the makeshift rack Cloud had constructed from the remnants of a metal box and thick steel wire.

"Mm." Cloud inclines his head, a faint, unconscious smile playing at his mouth. "Ásta. I found him injured a few weeks ago and patched him up. He's got nowhere else to go, so he's been staying here ever since."

"Only a few weeks ago…" Vincent sounds thoughtful. "It's rare for you to take to someone so easily."

Cloud just shrugs. "It's… easy to breathe, like this. Living with someone with no expectations."

Vincent is silent for another long moment, sipping slowly at his tea. Then he says, "You haven’t been at ease like this since Advent Day."

Cloud shuts his eyes. Sighs, long and tired. Opens them again. “Tifa’s right. I can’t keep living in the past anymore. But back there, everywhere was a reminder… I couldn’t—”

“But here is good for you. Your housemate—he helps.”

“He does. I haven’t… I don’t constantly think about _him_ anymore.” _And I don’t constantly feel like a failure when I do, either,_ he doesn’t add.

Vincent inclines his head and says in a rare bout of straightforward honesty, “I feel… reassured, seeing you doing well. No matter what anyone says, Cloud, you have no obligation to return if it does not make you happy. Do you understand?”

Cloud’s eyes widen in surprise. “I—”

"Be wary of the beasts that roam these ruins," Vincent warns, draining the rest of his tea. "Chaos grows uneasy whenever I come near. You know that never bodes well."

" … Thank you," Cloud says, and he's grateful for more than just the warning.

Vincent simply inclines his head, perceptive as always, before rising to leave. "Of course."

-

Not too long after that, Reno and Rude appear at their doorstep, lingering like a bad smell no matter how much Cloud tries to ignore them from inside. Ásta is out of the house again—Cloud isn’t quite sure what for, but he’d probably just forgotten to tell him before leaving, and the pounding at the door is irritating enough that Cloud promptly stops caring anyways as he throws it open with a growl.

_“What.”_

“Who’s this mysterious roommate of yours, yo?” Reno tries to worm his way past the unmoving barrier Cloud forms with his arm to no avail. “Aw, c’mon, Cloudy-boy, you ain’t gonna invite us in for tea like you did with Vincent?”

Cloud narrows his eyes and looks down his nose as best he can at someone who stands marginally taller than he does, and Reno just grins back, eyes narrow and calculating beneath the facade of his ease. If Cloud didn’t know better, he’d think Vincent had told the Turks about their encounter; instead, though, he knows Vincent had probably told Tifa just enough to ease her worry, and word had inevitably spread to the Turks, with their probing nosiness.

“Look, I dunno what happened between you ‘n’ Tifa, but whatever it is, it definitely ain’t worth being all the way out here, yo. If this is some kinda fucked-up way to punish her—it’s clear to anyone who’s watching that she’s sorry, okay? She just wants you back.”

Cloud smiles, sharp and humorless. “Like you’re someone to talk about what is or isn’t fucked up, Reno. Besides, this isn’t to punish Tifa. This is _for_ her." For him to return now just means he’ll pile his burdens onto her again. 

“Wh—you callous son of a bitch, you’ve been gone for _months,_ and all she’s ever done is respect your space like you want, the cold-hearted bastard you are, and all you can say is that?!"

Cloud frowns and opens his mouth to respond, because—had Reno said months? That's not possible; even without a reliable way to keep track of time out here with his PHS dead, there's no way he's been gone for more than a few weeks, a month at most.

But Reno barrels on. "You get off on breaking a girl’s heart or something, yo?! Rude’s been—”

“Reno.” The low, rumbling voice of his usually silent partner cuts him off, and Cloud realizes why Reno seems so personally invested in this matter. Of course he'd speak up on Rude's behalf when he thinks he's being wronged. Of course Rude would want to try to bring Cloud back to Edge if he thinks that's what will make Tifa happy.

But it's not. Cloud knows that very well.

So he looks up and meets Rude's eyes as well as he can, hidden by sunglasses as they are. “Tifa's strong. She doesn’t need the Turks to deliver messages on her behalf. If she really did want me back, she’d come here and tell me herself.”

After all, he realizes with a sudden, liberating clarity, for all that he runs and runs and runs, she’s never chased after him, either. And while he knows that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care—she cares about him far more than she really should, in his opinion, far more than he _deserves—_ it also means that… they don’t need him, back in Edge. They’ll be fine. And he breathes out, feeling free.

Rude gives him a nod, solemn and firm. "I'll tell her that."

Cloud just inclines his head, even though he doubts it'll change much. He's about to reply when a tall shadow falls over the two Turks crowding the doorway, and they both go still.

"Cloud," Ásta says, calm and level as always. "You didn't mention we were having visitors."

Cloud can't help the roll of his eyes, but he relaxes from his stiff pose guarding the entrance. "They showed up unannounced. They were just leaving."

"Y-yeah, no need to freak, yo." For some reason, Reno's face is pale and wan as his gaze flicks frantically between him and Ásta. He appears to arrive at some conclusion, though, and his grin slides back onto his face as he regains his composure, although it still barely manages to conceal his unease. "Your eyes…"

Cloud blinks at him. "My eyes?"

"Your place looks a little, uh, run down, yo," Reno says quickly. "Missing a few things. Probably hard roughing it out all the way out here, yeah? Maybe you should—look into getting a mirror—"

Ásta clears his throat. When Cloud glances curiously up at him, he says, "My apologies. I've been outside for quite a while; my throat is rather dry…"

"That's fine!" Reno's voice is just a tad too high and nervous. "We're leaving now, yo!"

And he grabs Rude and is gone. For some reason, Cloud can't help but feel like they're fleeing, and he muses, "I wonder what that was all about." Why a mirror specifically? After all, there are plenty of things their small home is still missing.

But he's interrupted from his confusion by Ásta's voice, harder and angrier than he's ever heard it before. "That should be my question."

Cloud frowns. "Ásta—"

"Would you really leave, if she came here and asked you to?"

"Ah, you overheard that." Cloud’s shoulders slump in a quiet sigh. Finally, he admits, low and uncertain, "I… don't know."

Ásta's eyes burn, bright and acid-green, and he stalks forward. Cloud only feels the briefest flash of surprise before his hands automatically rise to tangle in the silvery strands of Ásta's hair, and the other man pulls him up into a deep, claiming kiss, practically carrying his weight as large hands settle around his waist.

He doesn't question why; he forgets to. And for some reason, for the next few days, staring down at the semi-reflective surfaces of their tarnished cookware has him thinking about mirrors.

-

_4\. free_

The Turks are back. This time with helicopters and far, far too many of them. Their blue suits smear together into one dark blur in Cloud’s vision as his anxiety spikes, because—why are they here? What do they want?

Ásta's hand settles against the small of his back as he peers over Cloud’s shoulder, nudging the curtains back just enough so he can see out the window as well, and his voice murmurs, low and soothing and silky, “They’re here to separate us.”

Yes, they must be here to take him back, Cloud agrees vaguely. To take him _away._

But—they’re the Turks, and they’d… AVALANCHE had made peace with them, hadn’t they? He steps slowly out the door, one foot in front of the other, repeating internally to himself, _The Turks aren’t the enemy. Not anymore._

 _Not anymore means they used to be,_ another voice murmurs in the back of his head. _How are you sure they still aren’t?_

“Cloud—” Ásta snaps, sounding displeased, but he follows behind not long after, hovering like a tall, elegant shadow.

The Turks’ guns all snap up as Cloud approaches, each safety releasing in a chilling chorus of sharp clicks, and he flinches back at the sound that harkens to _rifles-gunshots-rain-bloodbloodblood,_ so much blood it’d stained the dusty earth red—

But he struggles hard, grappling with the memory, just barely succeeds in fighting it back, and he raises his hands in surrender, trying desperately to show, _We’re peaceful. Let’s just talk. Please._

For all his efforts, the shortest one in the front—blonde?—snaps, voice wavering and terrified, “Stop right there! Don’t get any closer or we’ll shoot!”

Cloud flinches again, this time taking a step back. He doesn’t understand _why,_ he’d thought they were allies now— _aren’t they?_

 _Betrayal,_ the voice in the back of his head murmurs again, louder. _They'd do worse in a heartbeat—of course they'd do worse, they're Turks, they lie and cheat and murder in cold blood—think of what they did to you and Zack, how they saw the carnage in Nibelheim and yet still listened to Hojo’s orders without batting an eye—they’d do it again if they were ordered to, you know—_

“Just—everybody relax, yo,” another Turk says—a smear of red in his vision, red like blood and fire and the tears that had stung his eyes that day—but Cloud isn’t listening. His words blur into a garbled mess that fades in and out, as if he speaks from underwater. “Come back with—and we’ll—just _alone—"_

Behind him, Ásta makes an angry growl, almost animalistic in its reverberation, and the line of Turks ripples in a flinch, hiding the quiet, airy sound of—

A sting in his shoulder, followed by a rush of tiredness just enough to make him flinch and stagger. The red smear whirls to bark something scolding and fearful in the direction it'd come from.

Cloud just stares down at the dart in his arm almost incredulously. Its effects are a pittance compared to the sheer amount of mako that runs through his veins, and he tugs it out with fingers that tremble for reasons unrelated to the tranquilizer quickly being neutralized in his bloodstream.

No, for them to use tranquilizer guns confirms the suspicion that had been building with dread in his gut. It means they want to take him back— _back to the labs,_ the voice hisses—and at that realization, something deep inside him cracks open and floods his being with terror. A terrible, empty haze fills his mind, and he goes _blank,_ limbs moving on autopilot, and the next thing he knows, he stands over three bodies crumpled lifelessly on the ground.

Then there are screams, and gunshots, and everything blurs together as he fights, still floating in the fog that binds him to his fear, dulling his senses and turning him deaf and blind and unfeeling for all he predicts his enemies' movements with ruthless, unfailing clarity.

He fights, because he knows he is stronger than Zack was, weakened by hunger and thirst and exhaustion as the SOLDIER had been, because he’s the one who killed Sephiroth with his own hands over and over and over again when Zack could not, because Zack never had the chance to. He fights because he knows if they kill him, he will not die, because even the Lifestream has no place for him to belong. And it’s the fear of what they will do to him when they take him still alive that drives him.

(Death is the fate that Cloud fears the least by far.)

When he finally comes back to himself, the blankness in his mind ebbing like a slow, treacherous tide, the bodies at his feet have multiplied. He stares blankly, trembling as the gravity of what he has done finally sets in, a gravity so strong it drags him down to his knees. A sword he doesn't remember drawing slips from his numb fingers.

He’d thought he’d been getting better. He’d thought—he’d _thought—_

Clearly, he’d thought wrong. He hasn’t hallucinated about his time on the run with Zack in years, the memories of those terrible, precious days that alternate between being a black void missing so starkly the emptiness they leave behind aches and being so crystal-clear the jagged edges cut sharp into his soul. But now, for him to backslide so heavily—now…

Now he has fifteen more deaths to be held accountable for. And he has nothing with which to pay his dues, only the blood staining his hands.

This is the part of himself he fears, the part he’d always known was—and now has proven to be—capable of so carelessly killing without a thought. The part of himself he keeps jailed under lock and bolt and key, because he’s terrified— _terrified—_ of becoming just like—

A scraping of feet behind him. He whirls, and—

_—Sephiroth._

He scrambles for the sword he’d dropped, fear of its origins outweighed by panic, and the rough concrete and dirt scrapes his palms, digs into his skin—

“Cloud.”

He blinks, vision shifting, and then—

“Ásta.” He almost collapses in sheer relief. It’s Ásta who stands in front of him, unharmed and unsullied and _safe._ Ásta, not Sephiroth, and as terrible as it may seem, it’s almost a familiar, comforting delusion; after all, it isn’t unusual for him to see ghosts of Sephiroth reflected everywhere he looks. Not like Zack. Not like that dark, rainy, bloodstained day on the cliffs.

“Cloud,” Ásta says again, crouching in front of him and gripping his forearms tight, and this time Cloud really does collapse against his chest, choking on a sob as he lets the sword drop from his hands again with a resonating clatter.

“I’m sorry,” he chants like a prayer, but he doesn’t know who he’s apologizing to. “I’m sorry I’m sorry _I’m sorry—”_

Ásta just strokes his hair and cradles him, humming an aimless tune, washing the pain away, washing the guilt away, washing the fear away. Washing everything clean until all that is left is Cloud, and eventually, even Cloud drifts away like his namesake, blank and empty and free.

-

"Let's go back inside."

Cloud knows Ásta is right to suggest it; the stars shine bright against the canvas of the deep blue-purple sky, the last vestiges of orange steadily fading below the horizon. But he doesn’t feel ready yet. Time seems to move so fast, now, slipping through the cracks in his mind like grains of fine sand. Lost bit by bit, leaving him scrambling to find what the wind has already stolen forever.

So he shakes his head. Puts on a weak, trembling smile. "You go ahead. I'll stay behind a little longer… give them a proper burial."

"Why? What you did to them is merciful compared to what they'd do—what they've already done—to you," Ásta points out, something cold and angry in his eyes. “They tried to _separate us.”_

"Still… they should be remembered.” Cloud exhales slowly and lets his eyes fall shut. “Someone out there will be mourning tonight."

"They're Turks," Ásta says, words slow and confused at first, but they build and build into a raging fire with each breath. "They should mean nothing to you. They _are_ nothing! How could you—"

"Ásta!" Cloud whirls as he raises his voice in anger for the first time for as long as he can remember. Then, slowly, carefully, he unclenches his fists. Loosens his jaw. Sighs. “Please,” he says, soft and quiet and sad.

Ásta’s own eyes flash a brilliant, angry green, almost fluorescent in their coloring, and Cloud suddenly feels a bit sick, stomach churning. They’ve never—argued like this. It feels _wrong,_ every fiber of his body rebelling against it. But he’s not going to change his mind, either, and somehow Ásta must sense this, because he turns on his heel and stalks back into the house, shoulders stiff and furious.

And Cloud turns back and kneels prostrate against the ground. Breathes his apologies into the dirt. Wishes he could return to floating away like he had in Ásta’s arms, peaceful and free, but—he knows he can’t.

He doesn’t deserve it.

-

_5\. gloves_

Cloud spends the next few days—weeks? months? He doesn’t know anymore, can’t trust himself anymore—in a haze of dread and anxiety, much to Ásta’s clear displeasure. The other man tries to catch his drifting mind, tries to bind it with burning kisses and touches that sear his skin so hotly Cloud finds himself checking his body for brands afterwards, but Cloud always drifts back away, gaze straying to the window, watching, always watching.

Always afraid.

And yet he is anticipatory, too, as he waits for his inevitable judgment day, and he thinks maybe some part of him wants this, wants to face the consequences of his actions, wants the sword to fall on his neck so everything will finally be _over._

These thoughts seem to displease Ásta the most, and he drags Cloud away from the window and thoroughly distracts him until his mind spins free and blank, and the cycle repeats again.

Finally, his judgment arrives in the form of a line of figures against the sky, dark and distant for now, but the longer he peers at the shimmering horizon, the closer they get, the more they resolve into lines and lines of familiar gray helmets and blue uniforms and red insectoid eyes.

Troopers.

For a moment, he’s confused—why are ShinRa troopers here? They shouldn’t even exist in this day and age—and then Ásta’s voice says, "They're here to take us back."

It blurs and overlaps with _oh boy, the price of freedom sure is steep,_ and then—

He doesn’t wait for them to arrive; he goes out to meet them head-on himself. Doesn’t notice how the ruins transition to smooth concrete and new signs and growing traffic. It’s terrifyingly easy for him to fall into that fear-fogged state for the second time, and it wraps gently, mercilessly around his mind until all he knows is the voice that rattles in the hollow space in his chest, echoing, _They're here to take us back._

It drowns out the screams, the shouting, each cry of his name. Each plea for him to listen goes unheard.

 _I won’t let them,_ he vows with each swing of the Buster sword, and he doesn’t question why he has it when it should be safe and honored in Aerith’s church. It’s here to protect them. _I’ll keep us safe this time, Za—_

The last trooper mouths something soundless as they strain to reach up, and the brush of fingers is cold and clammy against Cloud's cheek.

Cloud flinches at the touch of skin against skin. He'd tried so desperately to forget that this army, though ShinRa, consists of innocents who follow orders and know no better. He’d been a trooper too; this could have been him. But even the innocent can be ruthless, deadly, and Cloud won't go back, _can't_ go back, not to the endless green screams that still echo in his dreams—

But then Cloud falters. Skin? All troopers wear gloves—

And suddenly the trooper says with Tifa's voice, "Cloud. Cloud, _please,"_ and then suddenly it's Tifa's eyes, a familiar russet-brown, that stare up at him from Tifa's face, blotched with tears and smeared with blood.

"Cloud," Tifa says again, and this time her voice is full of relief despite the way it strains. "Your eyes… You snapped out of it. I'm glad… You have to… Sephiroth…"

Her voice fades. A last, struggling breath, and Tifa's words are cut off forever.

Cloud stares down at his hands, covered in blood—the blood of his friends, whose bodies lie scattered and broken across the ground, dead. Dead at Cloud's hands. Dead by the blade entrusted to him, the last of Zack's legacy, the honor he'd sworn to protect.

" … Ásta." _Beautiful, beloved, divine._ It falls hollow and twisted from his mouth, and it tastes like betrayal. _"Sephiroth."_

"Cloud," greets the man he'd been living with for the past year, familiar smirk back in place.

"I—" Cloud stares out at the carnage before him, taking it in. Not only his friends, but also—also townspeople, the elderly, _children—_ "I'm going to be sick," he says faintly.

And he is.

There's a hand against his back, rubbing soothing circles, and he flings it off. "Don't _touch_ me!" Then he leans over to vomit again, choking on the bile that burns his throat until nothing comes up but his own dry sobs.

Silence. Then, "Very well. Throw your fit for as long as you'd like. But don't you dare look away, Cloud. Take it in, all of it, everything you've done. Each scream, each plea for mercy, each useless bargain for their own or their child’s or their lover's life—know it was at the sight of your face. You did it all. You deserve it, Cloud. _They_ deserve it. Like I said…” His voice drops low and dangerous. “They should not have tried to take you away from me. You should not have said you would go.”

Cloud resists the urge to shut his eyes and turn away. Instead, he faces ahead, grim. Determined. Sephiroth is right; this is what he deserves. This is what they deserve, for him to acknowledge the full devastation of his own actions, not to deny it. Not to hide away from it.

This is what he deserves, he tells himself again.

"Very good,” Sephiroth praises, and Cloud flinches as the words seem to sear themselves into his very soul. “Look at the destruction you've wrought, Cloud. This is what I've been trying to tell you from the beginning. You and I… we are no different."

"Shut up," Cloud says. "Shut up, shut up, shut _up!"_

"I see you still aren't convinced. But you were always capable of this. On some level, perhaps you even _wanted_ this. After all, you were so easy to manipulate once you trusted me. So pliant. So eager to please. The perfect puppet.” Sephiroth begins stalking circles, sleek and predatory and graceful, around Cloud’s body kneeling in dirt and grime and blood. “I was surprised, you know, to wake to you tending to my wounds as if I were any other helpless mortal. But imagine my glee when I realized you thought I _was._ My power may have returned slowly, but our connection remains. It was simple to blind you to my eyes as they started to glow again. Blind you to the color of my hair as it grew longer. And eventually, my influence grew enough to blind you to the passage of time, to the landscape around you, to the identities of the people who stood before you. And finally, to your own actions as you slaughtered them all without a hint of regret.”

"No…" Cloud shakes his head in a harsh, jerking motion. "No. Nononono _no—"_

“After all you've done, who could possibly understand you more than I do? Who could possibly ever accept you other than me? Join me, Cloud. Let us be together, as we were always meant to be. And we will never have to worry about anyone else. There _will be_ no one else.”

Sephiroth looks so smug and self-assured as he speaks, as if Cloud has no other option but to fold to his will. And Cloud knows that, if given the chance, he truly would, now that the insidious haze of Sephiroth’s control already sits inside him, waiting, ready to envelop him at any moment.

Well. If there will be no one left to judge him, then Cloud will just have to judge himself. He grabs the Buster Sword. _The last good deed it will do,_ he thinks, bitter and peaceful at once, and—

Drives it deep into his throat.

Sephiroth's smug facade falters for the first time, falling into a strange sort of frozen, empty incomprehension. Then it shatters, breaking open into a mess of confusion, denial, anger. And underneath it all, the last thing Cloud sees, lurks sheer, utter _terror._

Cloud smiles.

-

_6\. hanahaki_

Sephiroth’s rage _(sorrow)_ shakes the very Planet. How dare Cloud defy him like this? Escape him like this?

_(leave him alone like this)_

And when his rage ebbs, he cradles Cloud’s limp body against his chest in a parody of a lover’s embrace, heedless of the blood that stains his clothing. By the time he stands, the bright red _(red, red, so much red)_ has already dried and darkened to a rusty hue.

It paints the wet rag pink as he washes the blood from Cloud’s skin and hair, dresses him in untorn clothing, until the only thing marring his appearance is the deep, gaping wound in his neck. But even that, too, is hidden by a clean white bandage and a carefully tucked collar.

Sephiroth lays Cloud on the bed they’d shared, tucking the covers neatly up to his chest. He takes a moment to admire the blonde man, still and pale and peaceful against the dark sheets. He could almost be sleeping.

Then Sephiroth straightens, eyes burning with bright fire. His voice is hard and cold and resonates with a heavy power as he commands, “Wake up.”

Blue eyes snap open.

-

Sephiroth’s puppet can no longer aid him in his conquest of the Planet. His limbs, pale and cold and weak, fold under the weight of a sword. Too much force causes bruises to blossom against his skin, mottled green and purple. He lacks the knife-sharp awareness, the deadly efficient grace that had kept him alive during their dances together, instead moving in slow, stilted, shuffling movements.

“It’s all right,” Sephiroth coos to him, running a gentle thumb over the slow rot creeping over his cheek, erasing it. Ignoring it. That’s not why he’d brought him back, after all. No, what matters now is that no one will ever be able to come between him and his puppet anymore; his puppet will no longer be able to leave him. “You help me in other ways. Isn’t that right, Cloud?”

Blue eyes blink slowly up at him, dull and glassy. Bloodless lips part in an attempt to answer, and Sephiroth’s puppet is such a _good_ boy, trying his best to please his master, even when despite all of Sephiroth’s best efforts, his voice no longer works, not after—

_(a blade sliding through pale flesh without resistance, marring his perfect throat forever)_

Sephiroth tucks the pristine bandage on his puppet’s neck a little tighter, then straightens his collar with careful hands, hiding the rot spreading dark beneath his clothes, blooming like flowers of nightshade.

-

Time passes. The Planet crumbles away like sand beneath Sephiroth’s assault. The Lifestream burns away, leaving only Sephiroth, only his puppet, only the cold, cracked, empty surface of their vessel as they sail through the cosmos together.

“Just the two of us,” Sephiroth murmurs against his puppet’s ear. “Just as it was meant to be. Aren’t you happy, Cloud?”

His puppet blinks up at him, silent and blank, and Sephiroth feels a flash of rage at being ignored. But that’s easily solved, and his puppet’s head immediately bobs as he wills him to nod. So pliant. So obedient.

Nothing like Cloud.

Nothing like the real Cloud, _his_ Cloud, and Sephiroth’s rage boils over as he hurls the puppet off his lap, sending the body sprawling, rolling over and over until its limbs splay across the ground like a limp doll. Lifeless.

Sephiroth glares down at it, daring it to spring back up to its feet spitting hate and hurling insults as he knows the real Cloud would. But the imposter complies in the only way it can, clambering laboriously back onto its feet, stumbling under its own weight, before turning its face up to Sephiroth, waiting patiently for its next orders.

Sweet. Uncomplaining. Obedient.

Hoping to hear Cloud’s voice raging back at him had been an exercise in foolishness. He’s never going to hear Cloud’s voice again; he knows this already.

He’s never going to hear him say _Ásta_ again, low and soft and sweet; never going to witness the quiet bell of his rare laughter light up his face; never going to indulge in his subtle fussing over Sephiroth’s safety, his lips tugging disapprovingly into something akin to a pout.

He’s never going to learn what Ásta means. What Cloud had intended for the future of Sephiroth’s blank slate.

Something in Sephiroth _cracks,_ and before he realizes, he falls to his knees. “Please,” he begs, an overwhelming, unnameable emotion clawing out of his chest and choking his throat, his nose, his mouth. Strangling him until he can no longer breathe. “Please don’t leave me, Cloud. _Don’t leave me.”_

Cold and calloused fingers brush against Sephiroth’s cheek, his puppet gazing blankly down at him, and for the first time, Sephiroth gazes back. Takes in the permanent bruises marring his throat and wrists, from when Sephiroth had been too rough in handling him. Takes in the edges of moldering flesh creeping out from beneath his bandages, despite Sephiroth’s best efforts to keep them clean. Takes in the way Cloud’s body is slowly, quietly, inevitably collapsing in on itself without his vibrant soul to sustain it, because Sephiroth had been too busy ignoring the signs to mind the passage of time.

Even if he could be content with a pale imitation, sooner or later, he realizes, even this fake Cloud is going to leave him too. And that, above all, is unacceptable.

So he plans. Because Sephiroth is a god, and even time itself will fold to his will eventually, he vows.

-

He almost doesn’t bury him. Cloud deserves better than to be abandoned to turn to dust, forgotten within the depths of the earth. But he remembers Cloud’s strange insistence on giving those he’d killed a so-called _proper burial,_ and he wonders if Cloud might prefer that instead.

So he compromises, carving a hollow in the cracked earth. He plans to lay him to rest atop a bed of flowers; all he can manage to conjure are nightshade, blooms of soft purple petals, bruised and rotting about the edges, but that will have to do.

They do well to hide Cloud’s own bruises, anyways, he discovers, threading them into a crown for his hair, a necklace for his throat, a bouquet for his hands.

When he finally lays him down, rearranging each limb with a diligent precision, his puppet stares up at him with wide eyes, uncomprehending. Sephiroth likes to think it’s fear—fear of being abandoned. It means his puppet is just as attached as he is, and he smooths back blond bangs to press one last kiss to his forehead and soothe, “Don’t worry, Cloud. We’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

Then he steps back, standing tall, summoning the entirety of his power. He doesn’t care if this act consumes it all, leaving him as weak and mortal as the day Cloud had found him in the ruins. It’s a necessary and calculated sacrifice; he’s going to alter the very fabric of the universe, after all.

The stream of time bucks against his control with a stubborn obstinance, but Sephiroth’s will is stronger still. He seizes the end and redirects its inevitable flow against itself, a serpent devouring its own tail.

The hourglass turns over on itself; the world resets.

-

_7\. reunion_

Cloud blinks.

The sun burns bright in his eyes, and his head throbs for some reason as he makes his unsteady way down a series of crumbling beams protruding from the shattered remnants of the Plate. Down, down, down towards—somewhere. Where?

What is he doing here? What had he been doing last? His memories feel like haze, slipping through his fingers the harder he tries to grasp for them, and he can't—he doesn't—

His mind aches, and it takes a while for him to remember—

The argument with Tifa. Leaving Edge to clear his head. Deciding to take a break, just for a bit, just until he can gather his wits about him enough to try again, really _try_ this time, because clearly he hadn’t been trying enough before…

But he shoves those thoughts away, boxes them up in a corner of his mind at the sight of a dark, crumpled figure far below, and the shattered fragments of cement still raining below without any movement of his own feet suddenly seems much more ominous. The sight of a puddle of red spreading around the figure’s head as he descends closer prompts him to move with a greater sense of urgency, discarding stable footing for the sake of haste. His hurried bounds across each perch disturb the ruins more than he’d like, the clatter of disturbed rubble echoing off the buildings and most likely attracting beasts, hungry and eager to catch prey unawares. But no more than the scent of blood will.

Blood means injury; blood means weakness. He can’t have fallen too long ago, but Cloud still has to move quickly.

It’s a head injury, to his dismay. Deep and jagged and still oozing, staining his close-shaven scalp a deep crimson. While Cloud does what he can with the materia he has on hand, he’s no miracle worker. Whoever this is, he’s going to wake disoriented and weak, and Cloud carefully hefts the heavy weight onto his back, moving as quickly as he can to outrun any monsters that might be making their way towards them.

Because no matter what, Cloud can’t just leave someone out here to die.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to drop by and say hi, yell, ramble, etc at my [tumblr](https://skadren.tumblr.com/)


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